Well, when many companies look at the cost of outplacement, they simply look at the money spent upfront for the service. This is, after all, what they will have to budget right off the bat.

However, the upfront outplacement cost is always smaller than the potential damage that not providing outplacement can cause your business.

Here’s what we mean:

Saving Your Brand

When layoffs or other reductions in force happen, the public generally takes that as a sign that your company has gone through a rough patch. This happens even when the layoff was pre-emptive and planned.

That means that your image is already on the line. So, when you layoff employees without a proper outplacement service, too, you set yourself up to the scorn of your ex-employees on top of the general public’s.

This can create a mess for any organization, and it could have been calmed by making sure your exiting employees had all of the tools they needed to transition to a new role.

Outplacement is a great way to show support for your staff and also your protect hard-earned reputation at the same time. If you also have a great severance package to go along with outplacement, you’ll have all of your bases covered.

By the way, the layoff notification meeting is also of utmost importance, too. If you want help in that arena, check out our free layoff script here:

Reduce Stress and Turnover

Layoffs are not just hard on those directly impacted by them, either. Think about the surviving staff and how they will feel if they know that the company they work at 40 hours a week is willing to just throw them out on the street with no support system.

If you were in their shoes, what would you do? Probably start looking for a new job or at least consider looking for one at the very least.

With morale lowered, your staff will not work as efficiently and your turnover rate may increase. Both of which are bad news for any business worth its salt.

By providing outplacement, you can send a message to your surviving staff that if they were ever let go from the company, they’d be in good hands, which - at a such a stressful time - is vital.

On the other hand, outplacement can also make you - the HR leader handling these layoffs - feel much better about the task at hand.

Sure, this might sound self-serving, but it’s true.

Laying people off is no fun for anyone. Outplacement can seriously help you cope with the stress because you know that your staff is going to land on their feet somewhere else.

This means that you will need to seriously evaluate your severance package, outplacement provider, layoff script, and every other thing that comes into play when a reduction in force is about to occur.

This sounds like amateur advice, but it’s shocking how many companies actually fail to realize the importance of handling a layoff correctly.

So, make sure your layoff goes over smoothly by providing employees exactly what they need to move on to a new role.

Outplacement Cost: The Final Say

Okay, so let’s wrap this all up.

In short, the potential cost accrued by not having outplacement is far more than the upfront outplacement cost.

It’s a win-win for everyone involved. However, we do understand that you run a business and need to know the upfront bottom line. You can find out how much outplacement will cost you using the calculator above.